The Peanut Butter Conspiracy is Threading!

We need a Peanut Butter Conspiracy thread! Listening to "It's a Happening Thing" or "Turn on a Friend" for the first time made me feel like I'd just discovered the unbeknownst missing link between Spanky & Our Gang and Jefferson Airplane...

― Lee626, Thursday, March 10, 2011 3:04 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Your wish is...

The Sundazed best of is fairly solid. "Dark On You Now" should have been a big hit. Didn't some other contemporary (possibly studio) group cover it with chart action?

There used to be a great promo film on youtube of "Back In LA" from their last album that has the band playing on a flatbed trailer being pulled down a highway by a semi and during the instrumental break they go through a Jack-In-The-Box drive-thru!

Anyway, discus & such about the PBC.

Hold the phone, the "Back In LA" clip is still up after all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3zL5pUrfZg

The Love Exchange did the other version.

Under the title "Swallow the Sun."

Ah yes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5l1BfTlrhA

Keyboard bits in place of guitar riffs.

Sandy Robison had a great voice, with an out of time style kind of like Connie Francis.

Somehow I knew if there was ever a Peanut Butter Conspiracy thread, the Love Exchange would be mentioned by the 5th post....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFXPqIYfqA
It's A Happening Thing

For some reason the fuzz guitar at the beginning is barely audible compared to my vinyl LP

love the first two albums. two big albums for me when i was getting into sike stuff years ago. still don't own a copy of the 3rd album! just never see it and i never thought to buy one online.

My obscure pick from them is "Roses Gone," which was on a benefit compilation LP called First Vibration. There's a different version on the recently reissued West Coast Love-In compilation that's also really good. (I'd assume that's the version that was also on the Spreading from the Ashes CD.)

It's awesome that they were a really good sunshine pop group but still a totally viable L.A. garage folk-rock band at the same time on the first album. Then, they were able to retain the sunshine pop element while evolving into a totally viable '68-era American rock group on the second album. Some of those tracks like "Lonely Leaf," "Living, Loving Life," and "Living Dream" are just so good.

perfect double bill would have been the peanut butter conspiracy and the jelly bean bandits. two really cool bands with really silly names.

Did you all notice the internal memo postcard in the "Dark On You Now" montage, changing the title of the follow-up single from "Turn On A Friend" to "Turn On A Friend To The Good Life" for fear the shorter title would be interpreted as advocating drug use? From Billy James (who signed off on the name change) at the suggestion of one Bruce Lundvall. My vinyl had the added words in parentheses IIRC on the back cover but not on the label, or maybe the other way around. The labels had such ridiculously high paranoia about anything that even hinted at drug advocacy during this era.

"This should make it clear that the Peanut Butter Conspiracy does not advocate converting the nation's radio listeners into a bunch of dope fiends.

O.K.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feKuh3v6qv4&playnext=1&list=PLD265E51604F20504